A client in Northern Ireland has just asked for some tips on how to improve the success and effectiveness of their email marketing activity. Cue another handy 10-point list that I thought I would share to you all...

A simple 10-point list to explain our role in providing CRM for advanced business development strategies for companies in Northern Ireland.

Recently, I have been asked to send the following information to a number of prospective clients to try to explain a little bit more about what we do here at SeeRM and, more importantly, what it means for your business or organisation. Basically, we're about using advanced marketing techniques to help you win new business sales and more profitable customers. So I thought I'd turn it into a blog post and 'spread the love' a bit wider...

The holidays were great but I bet some of you are like me and itching to get back into the fray. It feels like there's so much to get done and that it's a really good time to get going. Ok, so the world didn't end after all (oh those pesky Maya!) and there's still much economic uncertainty around but, for me, all that means is opportunity to clear the decks, throw out some tired old routines, and get cracking on some new ideas. So, I thought I'd start in time-honoured tradition and write out some resolutions for the year ahead and then we can look back in 12 months' time and see how far we got...

We're delighted to announce the launch of our new website and indeed a re-launch of the whole SeeRM project. So what's changed in the 2 and a half years since we were last doing this fine thing?

Back in early 2010 I set up SeeRM (CRM/see Russell Moore... geddit?) to be the vehicle for my constant and growing interest in Relationship Marketing as an alternative business management and development strategy and the place where small (and maybe not so small) businesses in Northern Ireland could read about it and maybe want to get in touch.

Of course then I went and took a big nice job with leading Belfast advertising agency RLA - and very pleasant it's been - but that big red flashing sign just keeps on flashing and beeping in my head and I just can't help thinking that this is what I'm meant to be concentrating on and focusing on bringing to the market.

I was asked this morning to provide a quotation and rationale to develop a client's website. All very normal you might think and with lots of scope to recommend some basic digital and social marketing gizmos to bring this puppy into the game, proper like...

Well no, not exactly. This client already has a pretty good website - it's built well, standards compliant and on a modern content management system (CMS) and the design's fairly nice too. Man, it even has a blog running so what could I possibly add to such marketing magnificence?

When you call your company SeeRM and the basis of the operation is to introduce digital relationship marketing to the good folk of Northern Ireland then I guess it's fairly important to have a working CRM system running our own business! The problem is, where to start – there's so many to choose from.

The CRM process is the bedrock of any modern-thinking business, recognising that being able to track and manage all aspects of the customers' interactions with an organisation is the key to long-term, loyal, happy and profitable relationships. Our view is that, really, all of the clever social media and website stuff is only ever a route into CRM marketing database – so there'd better be one!

I decided to think about it from the point of view of my own customers; what would they want? It needs to be low cost (if not free even), easy to use, fully functional and capable of allowing multiple administrative users. And so the hunt began...!

The established shape and role of the marketing communications agency is in the process of changing – massively, decisively and for ever. What are these changes and what can the traditional ad agency do to survive...?

Digital marketing has been widely described as either marketing via an evolving collection of electronic, interactive personal media channels and/or as a methodology to bring marketing communications to the users of those channels that taps into the way those channels are used. In truth, the use of these electronic channels is now so ubiquitous that they are no longer ‘new’ or niche but are now very much part of the everyday lives of all audiences.

The internet is no longer in competition with radio or TV, it is something that the audiences look at as well - and often at the same time. Indeed as what was traditionally called radio or television content is increasingly delivered over the internet via computers, games consoles etc and where traditional web content, games etc are being delivered and consumed via the mobile phone, there is now little or no distinction to be made in the various channels in terms of who can see what, where and when.

I heard a discussion on BBC Radio 2 the other night between Simon Mayo and his guest Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist who proposed that the maximum number of people with which a single person can have a stable, meaningful inter-personal relationship is 150. That is roughly the population size of a neolithic village, at about the time that humans developed language, and occurs because of the limits in the human brain to recognise and relate to other people in the tribe.

Now, that sounds immediately a tad nerdy but is interesting in a business world waking up to the explosion of web-based network marketing. Basically it means that you don't need to worry about having thousands of Twitter followers or Facebook friends and fans, you only need to build a smaller network of deeper, closer relationships.

After 150 or so (according to Dunbar) the network stops working efficiently and becomes a waste of time and resources. If you don't actually know the person or feel that you can do business with each other, there's maybe no need to add them to your network? Less really can be more!